In June of 2010 I decided to lose weight. I needed to since on 6/21 I weighed in at 355 pounds. I went the suggested route and cut back on my fat and ate more whole grains. Also, since it was summer Megan and I went walking quite a bit everyday on the trail that ran right past the back of the apartment complex we were living in. I failed then. By 8/6/2010 I weighed 332 (23 pounds lost) but by 9/1 I was back up to 339 including a day at 343. I stopped tracking on 9/8 and had stopped taking daily progress pics at the beginning of August. I was defeated. It was a gradual quit then. I didn’t understand why when I ate “healthy, mostly” and exercised that my weight didn’t go down. I didn’t understand why I’d have a few good days of losing weight and then gain 5 pounds. I wasn’t tracking food at all because it was annoying and I cheated constantly due to hunger cravings.

I set my goal weight on that diet to 280 pounds because the number was just outside of the range of possible in my head. 75 pounds lost was a lot to me then especially with a 1-2lb/week loss rate. In fact, I set the goal date then to 11/9/2010 (141 days from start). Today, 143 days from the start of going gluten free (100 days since starting low-carb), I surpassed that goal.

And I’m not done yet. Goal weights don’t even come close to scaring me anymore. I used to look at that number and wish I could reach it knowing that I likely would fail at it. Today because of my support system, research, and this diet in general I’ve been able to make the 2010 version of myself proud (heh… I am Dez 2.0). I got a bit teary eyed because I still remember the stress I caused myself when I saw the scale creep up instead of down even after a really good eating/working out day. I don’t get stressed over those up days any more. They happen and with a lot of accuracy I can actually predict them the day before based on how the day is going. My body isn’t my enemy anymore. Me and it… we’re like this.

This diet is amazing. I feel better than ever and how my body responds to it is predictable and sustainable. So, to the last 50 pounds. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Link to progress pic: Warning: shirtless man

tl;dr: My goal weight in 2010 was 280 pounds. I failed then. I’ve surpassed it now.

Pure, White and Deadly by John Yudkin was originally published in 1972 and talks about the dangers of sugar and the effects it has on metabolism.

I just received my copy today and will start reading it soon (right after I finish reading Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.

It hasn’t been re-printed in the US yet and as such I had to order it from a UK publisher, but I’m excited because I didn’t think I would ever be able to read it due to hardcover copies going for almost $300 and an original printing is in the 1000′s for buying. Truthfully, I don’t expect a US publisher to pick it up because they’d likely get massive pushback from the sugar industry.

Before I get into my take here’s the link to the Diet Doctor post and a link to his follow-up

Diet Doctor was unintentionally my first resource upon starting keto since he’s got a LCHF for beginners page with some easy to understand basics that are laid out nicely and not mixed in with science until you get further down the page.

I respect his opinion a ton and this post made me really question what I’ve done previously in MFP and since I stopped counting my food a week ago the obsession* with knowing exactly what I’m ingesting is starting to subside.

It’s an interesting transition. I’m readjusting back to where I was before I started tracking at the beginning of January and eating until I feel satiated. I can actually trust my body again with the amount of hunger I feel and the amount of food it takes to be satiated. The weight is coming off with a predictable rate and because of my data tracking and note taking I can accurately predict a few things.

So, do I think calorie counting is an eating disorder? Not by the classical definition of disorder, but I definitely think it could lead to a classical disorder if unchecked and unmanaged. I don’t want to weigh and look up everything I eat since I’m eating whole foods at this point and I especially don’t want to have to do it forever. I don’t even look at labels anymore since only the oils/dairy products that I buy even have labels.

The hardest part is that calorie counting is extremely habit forming if you’ve got good progress losing weight. I know that I attributed a lot of my weight loss to my need to log my food, but my wife lost weight without counting and just eating when she was hungry; so my analytical brain threw up a flag.

The other danger I’ve noticed is that since I stopped tracking I got dehydrated once because my original tie to water was the need to track it. Once I stopped tracking I didn’t act on the urge to fill up my empty water bottle.

What’s your take?

\obsession: *Having to know what I’m eating or be disappointed and irritated that I couldn’t track it. Or not eating something because I don’t know what exactly is in it even if it’s presented to me by someone I trust and have been told that it’s low-carb.

I cross posted this to Reddit’s /r/keto subreddit

Since February 1st I’ve hit three very important milestones on my weight loss journey:

• Halfway there: 65.6 pounds lost: Achieved 2/1/2013 (361.2 Starting | 230 Goal)
• 70 pounds lost: Achieved 2/7/2013
• 20% total weight lost: Achieved 2/9/2013

There’s something else that I want to dive into now. With the average American being in the “overweight” category anymore the fact that justifying being overweight and being proud of your body has become pervasive in our culture. I used to be guilty of this as well. Using the excuse of “I’m big boned” to justify the fact that I was 130 pounds overweight. It still didn’t change the fact that I was embarrassed to raise my arms in public due to the fact that my belly would show underneath almost every shirt I wore.

This is quite possibly the only picture of me with proof. I’ve either destroyed or not allowed a picture to be taken of me that could display my belly. My friends are kind.

On that same token, the people who are overweight and specifically obese are likely not even at fault. Nobody eats with the knowledge that they’re going to get fat, they eat because they’re body tells them they should be eating. Whether it’s because of increased cortisol (stress) or insulin resistance. And not unlike what happened with myself, the diet suggested by the USDA is full of things that just make your body think you’re still hungry.

Guess what I haven’t done in 3 months: craved a bagel at work either early or mid-morning, touched the magical candy drawer at work, raided the fridge around 8:30 – 9:30 at night, or eaten a grain. I don’t say that to sound pretentious. I used to yell at myself for all of those activities (except the last one). I didn’t understand why I ate a “Healthy” meal and was ready to raid the fridge a few hours after every meal. I don’t do those things anymore because my body doesn’t tell me to. There wasn’t will power involved with it. Just knowledge.

I’m amazed at the amount of pure information I’ve gleaned from just googling and reading about not only how the human body digests the food it gets but also what the food we’re told to eat actually does to us. What the correlation is between an orange being good for us, but orange juice being worse than a coke ounce for ounce (look it up). There are so many questions that I was able to start asking myself and of my food that the way I had been eating and had been told to eat no longer made sense.

How is it that I’ve been able to lose 70+ pounds in 4 1/2 months without really doing any normal exercise regime? Do I plan to exercise? Yes. Because even though I’m not likely to be one of those people that want to run a 5k (I hate running, always have). I do want to be able to run up and down the basketball court for a full game without having to sit out the last portion of the game due to being winded. My philosophy based on what I’ve read and my direct experience with losing weight is this: My weight is directly correlated to my diet. My ability to run up and down a basketball court is directly correlated to the fact that I don’t do it that often. Will I lose more weight faster if I exercise and stick on my current diet? Very likely, but it’s cold out and I don’t want to pay for a gym membership. So long walks with the family will wait until spring and summer. I also envy those that love working out and someday I’ll get there. I’m already on the way there since the wife and I took on walking the MOA on a weekend (two total and they were in a row with plans already for next weekend).

What I’m trying to say is that if the latest diet you tried doesn’t work for you to lose the weight and no matter how much you exercise you keep gaining or not losing; then maybe you should consider that the way you’ve been told to eat is wrong. Maybe it’s as simple as that.

But for the progress: